1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle seat mounted in a vehicle such as an automobile.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-305549 (JP-A-2004-305549) describes a vehicle seat having, for example, a seat cushion, a seatback that is rotatably attached to the seat cushion, and a spring that urges the seatback to a raised upright position from a reclined position in which it is tilted back behind the seat cushion. The spring is spiral shaped and has a center-side end portion arranged near the rotational center of the seatback, and an outside end portion positioned on the outer peripheral side of the spring. The center-side end portion is hooked on a seat cushion-side hook, and the outside end portion is hooked on a seatback-side hook. Therefore both the outside end portion of the spring and the seatback-side hook move with respect to the seat cushion when the seatback rotates with respect to the seat cushion.
However, a shield member that covers the spring is typically attached to the side of the seat cushion. It is desirable to make this shield member small so that it does not get in the way when a user gets in and out of the vehicle. One way to make the shield member small is to make the spring small. The problem with this approach, however, is that the spring must be able to apply a predetermined amount of torque to the seatback, which makes it difficult to reduce the size of the spring.